


One Last Drink

by Xaidread



Series: Polyptych: Visitations [3]
Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Embedded Video, Gen, Podfic Available, Podfic Length: 0-10 Minutes, Video Format: MP4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-06-02
Packaged: 2019-05-14 15:33:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14772329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xaidread/pseuds/Xaidread
Summary: The Outsider pays one last visit to an old friend.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for Death of the Outsider & The Return of Daud.  
> Listen to the podfic version embedded in chapter 2!

The audiograph machine clicks off and Daud leans back into the chair, drawing out a creak from its frame as he settles in deeply. He takes a long pull of whiskey, eyes shut, fighting one foggy buzz in his head with the anticipation of another. The next moment he gets his eyes open, he registers with a hot jolt to his gut that the black-eyed bastard is standing over him by the chair—has been, for however long it took to savor that swallow.

His grip over the bottle tightens against an onset of tremors while that fucking creep under his guarded gaze takes his free hand—of course it's the one with the old brand—into the icy clasp of two. It seeps through his glove, this chill coming off that deranged thing from the Void ever appearing in the guise of a young man. Thin lips tighten in a jaw-locked grimace as he tolerates the touch, pressing and pointless, for the span of a few quickened heartbeats. Then he shakes free from that cage of fingers, seizes at the adjoining wrists.

"Don't expect me to thank you for everything I've done because of _this_ ," he hisses between his teeth, squeezing on the last word. He feels pins and needles under his own skin.

His hold is all wrong, yet he meets no resistance, just the black stare as placid as swamp water. There's frigid regard in there, a surface iced over like marshlands at low tide before the first turn of the moon's horn signaled Hearths' weak thaw. He never could guess at what turbid thoughts swirled behind those damned eyes so much like lamp-blackened mirrors.

"I never asked you to." One hand—the ringed one—slips out from under Daud's numb grasp, easy as rain running over rock or storm water down the gutter. "But I know there were times when you did."

Chapped, narrow and nearly bloodless in pallor, those fingers push Daud's sleeve back and catch on the cuff of the black leather concealing his Mark from common sight.

"Don't—"

He does, exposing the network of corruption that crosses over aged blood vessels. The black lines radiate from the Mark; his Void-touched hand is darker than it has been since the day he received the god's blessing, his curse.

The Outsider steps back, almost out of reach. "If not for me," he says quietly while he fondles the peeled-off glove, "you might have died before hitting thirty. But you never would have made it _here_ on your own if you could help it. Another's force of will had put you on this path."

"No one made me do anything," Daud wheezes in protest, bracing his left hand on the armrest as he lurches up from his seat. He comes up light-headed and the dark floods his vision, as if he's been breathing in fumes from dirty oil for too long. He wishes he had on the industrial mask.

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry that we part in these circumstances."

The Outsider deftly removes the bottle from his hand before it slips away. "One last glass, Daud?"

The Void takes him.


	2. [auto-podfic edition]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Video length: 4m10s

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Typewriter sound provided by soundslikewiller on [freesound.org](https://freesound.org/people/soundslikewillem/sounds/193972/)


End file.
